Cette semaine j’ai pu faire deux sorties sur Camplong.

Une sortie le mardi après midi avec Eric. Nous avons eu un très beau temps c’était génial, en short et tee shirt pour une fin novembre, que demander de mieux? Une petite boucle de 17km pour que Eric puisse bien tester son nouvel achat: un Rockrider 8.1 .

Un parcours classique, la montée par le réseau vert jusqu’à la Jasse d’Azin, puis la descente de l’Arboretum versant nord.

Le tracé GPS est dispo ICI.

Le surlendemain je suis parti tout seul faire une boucle un peu plus longue (26km), avec environ 1100m de dénivelé. Je suis monté un peu plus haut par le réseau vert jusqu’au mont Agut.  La montée jusqu’à la Jasse d’Azin est assez rapide, la piste sablonneuse permet de rouler sur un gros braquet, mais au delà ça se corse. Le terrain est plus caillouteux et ça monte un peu plus. Par contre en plein nord il ne faisait pas bien chaud. Je suis descendu par le GR, puis j’ai pris le sentier de l’Arboretum coté Sud. J’ai ensuite pris la variante qui m’a fait rejoindre l’Arboretum coté Nord. C’était la première fois que je l’empruntais dans ce sens. Une descente ludique, technique, typée Cross Country, un pur régal. Dommage qu’en cette saison il y ait un peu trop de feuilles de châtaigniers au sol; par endroits l’épaisseur de feuille dépassait facilement les 50cm. Impossible de savoir s’il y avait une branche ou des cailloux sous cette couche!

Le tracé GPS dispo ICI.

Bref, c’est un coin vraiment super pour un bon entraînement.

T.

A while back, when I was only just starting to blog, I posted a picture of Snow White riding on my shoulders as we had a Sunday afternoon walk at the arboretum. I remember thinking how it would be nice to have pictures in the future of us walking side by side there.

Well she still likes to hold a hand or two when walking in her wellies, but she did a couple of good long walking stints this afternoon!

So now we have one of those little people that have to stop to look at every ant, crack in the pavement, or – in this case – fallen leaf. There are a lot of fallen leaves in an arboretum in November. Bless her!

The winter garden at the arboretum is coming into its own from now on:

There were flowers to be found too, like this winter honeysuckle just coming into bloom:

Such little flowers with such a strong, beautiful scent.

After our cold walk we thought it was in order to have tea and cake in the restaurant! I hadn’t thought to bring a bib or a sippy-cup or wet wipes or anything along with us. But Snow White was just fine without. She sipped milk from my teacup (although she kept doing a cute check to make sure it wasn’t hot… my training about not touching Mummy’s cups of tea is really working!) with barely a dribble, and ate the bottom layer of my Victoria sandwich cake with minimum crumbling. Well who would expect anything less of a fifty-one-week-old?

Early morning photo of the UC Davis Arboretum.

Spider weaving a beautiful web in the UC Davis Arboretum.

Bumblebee at Work

Don’t hang around here. Please visit my new blog at http://seededearth.com.

I don’t ever really post my photography minus the select on Facebook, yikes, here we go.

I went home this weekend and took my D40 and 17-55 lens.  Mom, sister and I went for a walk in the arboretum to find fall colored leaves — there were only two trees that weren’t nasty brown.  Gotta love that manual focus…

p.s. Know what I just learned? WordPress is nice enough to desaturate and crop your pictures for you, without even asking! ughhh…

My 13 year old sister decided to let me take her picture.

It’s a bit stark and bleak, no? We are heading towards winter and so all the plants, flowers, and leaves are gone.

6cmx6xm negative scanned then toned in Lightroom.

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Beautiful texture on a leaf changing colors in early autumn.

Technorati Tags: photography, film, tmax, 400, kodak, xtol, mamiya, c330, university, illinois, arboretum, urbana, sepia

Last night I had every intention of sleeping in this morning. My cat and my internal clock felt differently about my plans.

I awoke at 7:00.  With a lunch date at noon, there was no excuse big enough to keep me in bed.

I packed up my bike gear and headed to the park/trail.  Whew.  The rain may be gone, but the ground is still damp and tacky.   Arbor Hills in Plano is just over two miles.  For a  little trail, it consistently leaves me winded.  Add the post rain slick spots and this little trail packs in a good workout (plus it is close to home).

My first lap I heard a guy not too far behind me.  I was tired, but kept pushing myself.  He never caught up.  My competitive efforts made for a much slower second lap.

Getting up and exercising was an invigorating way to start the day.  With the trails dry I’m able to ride again.  Oh, how I’ve missed it.  There’s just a freedom in riding a trail when no one else is around.

My boyfriend is picking me up for lunch.  Breadwinners is delicious for breakfast.  I’m hoping lunch is just as good.

Last weekend I purchased a light stand and umbrella.  The plan was to buy a stand, light and adapter for $100.  After looking at the quality, I couldn’t do it.  The cheap stand was difficult to open and expand.  The base was narrow, and with a cat, and me being a bit of a cluts, wider is better.

So I went with a Monfrotto stand. It’s beautiful.  I also pruchased a Westcott 45″ umbrella.  Both are larger than I anticipated, but I feel they’ll give me 1.  Durability as they are both made very well.  2.  I’ll be able to do a lot more with them because of their size, even if carrying them around is a pain.  I’m used to dragging enormous video tripods and light cases around, and I have referred to myself as a pack-mule on several occasions.  Comparatively, photo equipment is a breeze.

After lunch we’re stopping by the arboretum to test out our wares.  Dave has a new 18-200 Nikon lens.  I’m happy he shares   Because he also has an SB900 flash that I will take full advantage of.  I’ve borrowed an SB600 from a guy that I work with (thanks Paul), so we’ll both have flashes.

I plan on going through David Hobby’s “On Assignment” section and posting my progress on my wordpress site.  I’m working on getting www.fussalina.com set up, but in the mean time, I’ll have my test shoots here along with my photos and other random things I like to put online.

Eventually I’ll get back to blogging about the wedding and posting photos, but it’s hard to go back and blog about something and put in so many photos, so I’m writing about today. Ben and I rode our bikes to the zoo this morning, which was a lot of fun. Madison has a lot of bike paths and a lot of roads with bike lanes so it wasn’t that difficult to find a route. And we got to ride though the Arboretum which was really nice this time of year. The zoo here is a free zoo and it a really pretty good one. All in all it was an excellent outing and a few photos are posted below.

Trapped

Nothing endures but change. ~~ Heraclitus

I’m definitely enjoying the Indian Summer this week! In honor of the beautiful weather, I’m going to treat you to some photos of beautiful ornamental grasses on our grounds. (Yeah, I don’t really know what that has to do with the weather, but they look great, so it’s a good time to share!)

This blue juncus (actually a sedge, not a grass), has been looking gorgeous in the Quiet Garden all year. It is such a unique shape and color.

This is Little Bluestem, a native prairie grass. (Yes, I managed to crop most of my shadow out of the picture.) You have to love that rust color in the fall.

This Reed Grass has really nice white “plumes.”

This ‘Cosmopolitan’ Japanese Silver Grass is definitely taller than I am. It has variegated leaves, and the silvery seed heads.

This Northwind Switchgrass has a delicate beauty that is hard to capture in a photograph. To see it in better detail (along with many other grasses), you’ll have to come visit our grounds!

Have a great weekend!

Liza and Ian are friends from my old camp days at Phantom Lake YMCA camp. As you may know, camp makes strong bonds (very strong in their case) and it is my total honor that they chose me to be their wedding photographer for next year. Liza is a very intelligent and caring woman, and Ian is one of the funniest people I have known, besides being a great chef and all around good person. It can sometimes be difficult to photograph friends, but we had a wonderful time at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum this fall, and then back to their house for a few photos while playing word games.

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Click Here to View Our Carry Out Menu

Executive Sushi Chef Andy Park and his team have developed a menu around this idea. With portions that are perfect for sharing you can explore how different tastes combine into an unforgettable meal. Design your meal based on your mood, the day, the moment – perhaps it’s a light lunch with friends after a morning of shopping. Or, it’s dinner with your corporate team after you’ve reached your sales goals. And then there’s date night with that special someone. You see, at Nozumi Japanese Cuisine it’s our wish to make your wish for the perfect meal come true.

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Our love for great Japanese cuisine goes beyond traditional sushi to fulfill a complete dining experience. Your journey begins when you are presented with the Nozumi Menu Box – a collection of five books, or menus, that have been carefully arranged and artfully presented.

Go ahead, pass the books to those around the table and discover the delights Nozumi has in store. While conventional menus are broken into categories – appetizers, soup, salad, entrees, desserts – the Nozumi culinary team has broken the barriers of menu design with this new approach – like the food, the menus and the items within are meant to be talked about and shared. You might even notice that on the bottom spine of each book is a letter that when combined with the others spells out Nozumi

Remember this cute little face??  Well the Benjamins decided they wanted to do some family photos when she turned 6 months!  We went to the Aboretum, which was beautiful for all those pretty fall colors!  They’re all so cute together and I’m so glad I got to take more pictures of them!  You guys are awesome and I hope you enjoy your pictures!!

I just loved how Annabelle was licking Craig’s face!

A cute blooper…

Best friends…

Piper at 6 1/2 months

I love the one on the left because Piper always tries to do that

This is my favorite of the three of them. Just watching Annabelle being silly on the side and I thought it created a cute moment

One of my favorites from the day

Thanks again you guys!!

Last week we celebrated A’s birthday with a road trip to the Dallas Arboretum.  It was a breathtakingly perfect October day, sunny and crisp, & the gardens were in the middle of their annual Great Pumpkin Festival.  We spent the afternoon enjoying the fall vibe & strolling through the chrysanthemums & mums in full bloom (there are over 22,000 on the grounds!)  Really, nothing beats soaking up the beauty of nature… although our massages at Exhale Spa & dinner at Craft that evening were definitely a close second!  A few snapshots:

Lupe and I went for a long walk through the arboretum a few days ago and brought my camera. We were hoping for some sun so that maybe we could get a few pictures with the sun setting, but it never came out.::shrug:: At least it didn’t rain.

After walking gingerly through the mud for a bit we found this (almost) hidden path out to a small dock.

That giant claw in the background is Husky Stadium.

Its always so disappointing when an image comes out blurry. Not to mention it means 60 cents down the drain!

Photo credit: Lupe

Neither of us were particularly good at coming up with posing ideas. It would be fun to do some sort of photoshoot and direct my subjects around and all but I just feel silly doing that. I have been thinking I should play around with the idea of a photo story though. Do you have any ideas?

Photo credit: Lupe

Hundreds of birds took flight as we were walking by. It was stunning and looked a little ominous, as I think the photo shows.

This one is my favorite of the set.

“Is that a slug?! I’m getting out of here!”

I can’t really think of a better way to relieve stress than to go outside for a long walk. And boy do I have plenty of stress to relieve! I’m glad I’ve kept this up though (and glad you all are still reading!), getting my film back definitely adds some excitement to the week. Even blurry film : )

*click images for full view

Today we returned to the Arboretum (one of my favourite places) to spend the day with a friend. My goodness did it pour, though! The forecast was for rain to clear at 10 but an hour later we still in the cafe with five very well behaved, but increasingly bored, children, watching the heavens open and the rain come down in torrents. We eventually made a dash for it to go to the den bulding area which I thought would be relatively dry. You can tell from these pictures, though, that it was still soaking…

and poor Alice had to have bags tied to her feet to keep them dry!

But the rain did clear and we were able to have picnic in the dry. There was a lot of mud, though, by the end of the trip but that’s what washing machines are for!

at Sunset

If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It’s a time of year when the leaves are down and  the harvest is in and the perennials are gone… it’s time to reflect on what has come before. ~ Michael Burgess from Northern Exposure, Thanksgiving, 1992

UW Arboretum Prairie

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. ~~ Edwin Way Teale

Autumn’s light hangs low in the sky for only a few minutes as these days turn into night earlier and earlier. Most of the seed heads have had their seeds dispersed, but a few of the Prairie Thistle had most of their seed fluff still securely tucked in the plant. The plants all seem heavy with seeds this year. Will there be more flowers next spring?